Something I've been missing
Italy is not perfect. They don’t have many salad meals like I’m used to in other places. The few I have had have been overworked and under-respected. To my mind there is no reason to make trails of little dots of balsamic vinegar across the plate. For that matter, what is that space doing on my plate? A meal salad should be big and boisterous and generous to a fault.
It should also offer something mysterious in the flavor. The sum of the parts should add up to more than you expect. It should surprise you in some way and never leave you to say “boh!”
I am undertaking to make and give instructions here for big salads I like in English and in Italian. You have to start somewhere, and right now with high summer temperatures looks like the place to me.
Insalatona Cobb
Cobb salad lovers will know instantly that this is not the real thing. This is, instead, what one can make here with easily found ingredients... more or less the essential magic flavor of Cobb. My salad has Boston lettuce and rucola as greens.
Lettuces for two people, about 1.5 liters of washed and dried greens torn in bits
2 tomatoes, cut into 16 pieces each
1 small onion cut in smallish pieces—about 2 cm long
50 g (1.6 ounces) pancetta affumicata a dadini (little cubes of smoked pancetta which is our bacon)
50 g (1.6 ounces) Gorgonzola or other blue cheese, crumbled or diced
juice of 1 lemon
salt
olive oil in twice the amount of the lemon juice
Cook the pancetta or bacon until browned and remove to a paper towel to drain and crisp
In a very large bowl, juice the lemon. Add about ¼ teaspoon of salt and stir in. Whisking with a fork, add the olive oil in a stream until it is incorporated and forms a nice dressing.
Crumble or dice the cheese into the dressing. This is most important if using Gorganzola, because it is creamy and tries to go back to its original clumpy form immediately. The dressing keeps the pieces separate.
Put in the greens, the onion, the tomato and the Pancetta/bacon. Using your clean hands, toss and turn the salad until it is well mixed. Done!
Insalata Cobb è un piatto unico particularmente addata alle temperature alte tra l’estate. Con un bel fetta di pane e un gelato dopo, sarebbe una cena molto carina.
Insalate per due persone, circa 1.5 litre, lavate, asciugate, pezzate, nella foto ci sono l’insalata gentile e la rucola
2 pomodori, tagliate a dadi circa 16 pezzi alluno
una piccola cipolla tagliata a pezzi circa 2 cm di lunghezza
50 g pancetta affumicata a dadini
50 g Gorgonzola tagliata a dadi
il succo di un limone
olio extravergine doppio la quantità del succo di limone
sale, circa ¼ cucchiaino
Fa arrosolare la pancetta e poi toglietela alla carta di cucina
In una ciottola molto grande, mettete il succo di limone e il sale, mescolando con una forchetta. Pian, piano, aggiungete l’olio, mescolado in continuo. Aggiungete il Gorgonzola. Aggiungete le insalate, i pomodori, la cipolla e la pancetta. Con le mani pulite, saltate tutto fino e ben mescolata. Finita!
Non sbagliare la taglia della ciottola. Ci vuole una ciottola spazioza per fa saltare senza incidenti.
6 Comments:
I am assuming you can use real bacon if you don't like pancetta ... It sounds good and the picture looks very appetizing.
Wow your Italian is fantastic. I agree 100 percent with on the salad front. I love giant salads too. Complete with cheeses, olives, more than one kind of green, a variety of veggies, cubed chicken or steak. You name it. One thing I do miss is good ranch dressing or some other white creamy dressing, just once in a while.
Thank you my dear eg, yes, of course, that's why I mentioned bacon. Pancetta has a little garlic in it, but pancetta affumicata makes a good substitute for bacon as you know it. Even without the picture, I scarfed that salad down in an instant. It was very tasty.
Grazie, mia cara Gia. Ho trovato un paio di sbaglie, ma sto aspettando la Alice o qualsiasi italiano per corregere veramente il testo.
If you like Roquefort or blue cheese dressing, I can give you a recipe for that. I tried dried buttermilk for making Ranch dressing, but the powder clumped. I might be able to overcome that problem by mixing the powder with other ingredients, but at the moment it wasn't awfully important to me.
I mostly don't make dressings ahead of time here, because my frigo is stuffed with other prized expat roba, but I often keep a mustardy vinaigrette around for splashing into things that need some oomph. I have been making salads lately by making a lemon/oil dressing in the bowl before assembling the salad. I have a bunch lined up to do as I eat them. Since I am one smallish person surrounded with vegetarians, it will take a while, but there should be a bunch. Maybe I will even come up with a white dressing for you?
I'm hungry now. There's "roman lettuce" growing in my garden... I guess that will be lunch today!
Let me chime in as another meal salad lover. A few days back, Peter brewed up a dressing using among other things yoghurt, anchovies, and parmesan. This was used over romaine lettuce, and then I added sliced tomato, cucumber, hard boiled eggs, olives, cold chicken and avocado. Quasi-Cobb?
Still? Heaven.
And would you believe Wikipedia has entries for Cobb Salad and Caesar Salad? Astounding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobb_salad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad
Why not? Wikipedia is what people know and what they think they know. It is the strangest phenomenon, in which something correct can be posted and then altered to be incorrect by someone else!
Peter's dressing sounds nice. I too was thinking of yoghurt, specifically Greek yoghurt to make something for Gia.
Meantime, there's a new salad ready to go up, so we can crunch and munch around the world.
To me, as I tried for a Cobb, the two ingredients that made it Cobbish were the bacon and the blue cheese. I could add or leave out most of the other things-- after all, who has ever finished a Cobb salad?
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